[ALISON PIDGEON]
You are listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you were thinking about starting a group practice or in the beginning stages, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, you are in the right place. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host, a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a large group practice that I started in 2015. Each week, I feature a guest or topic that is relevant to group practice owners. Let’s get started.

Thank you for listening. I’m Alison Pidgeon your host. We are coming up on almost two years of making this podcast and I hear more and more people tell me that they have been listening and enjoying the content. So thank you so much. And right now we’re in the middle of doing a podcast series, all about design interior design for therapy offices. So if you want to hear about my new business called Thera Suite, definitely listen to the first episode that aired in January. If you want to check out their suite, you can go to www.thera-suite.com. So suite is spelled like hotel suite.

Thera Suite was born out of an idea that therapists need put designing their office spaces either because they’re short on time or they’re just not good at it, or whatever the reason is. We have two options to make it easy and to have your office look professional and calming and all of the things that you want as a practitioner. So we have one option, which is buying a board. So if you ever looked on Pinterest, you might have noticed there’s something called a mood board or a concept board and that is where they pull together all of the things that would be in one room, like the couch and the chair and the rug and the art and all of the stuff that you need to furnish and decorate the space.

So we have those available for purchase and once you purchase them, you’ll get all the links to purchase all of the things in the board, and you can have them shipped directly to you, because they all come from Target and Wayfair and Amazon and places like that. You can set up your office yourself. If you want a more custom design, you can reach out to one of our interior designers who are familiar with designing wellness spaces and they can create a custom design for you. So those are the two options and I’m really excited to be launching this into the world this year. I was working on it in 2021 and now the beginning of 2022, it is ready to be released out into the world.

So we’re doing this podcast series and I’m interviewing practice owners and interviewing interior designers all about their best kind of tips and suggestions for designing a clinician’s office. And so today I am interviewing Lori Miller, who’s a wellness designer. She has degrees both in interior design and she is also a mental health clinician. She has a transitional style if you know what that is and she has successfully created a career designing office spaces for therapists. So Lori has lots of great advice for you and I hope you enjoy this interview.
[ALISON]
Hi Lori, welcome to the podcast.
[LORI MILLER]
Hi and thank you for having me.
[ALISON]
I’m excited to talk with, yes, I’m excited to talk with you. I know you have a very unique skillset being both a therapist and an interior designer. So can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about that?
[LORI]
Sure. So Lori Miller, I am an I a designer, but I am also a licensed mental health therapist. I ran the psychiatric unit at Rikers Island and I ran the Crime Victims Program for the Queens DA for over 30. Well, not both for over 30 years, but I was at Rikers for over 30 years. And one of the things that I found the passion in was when I was doing my own house. I said, oh, I really love colors and construction and picking things and wallpaper and fabrics. It was very tactile. So I decided to work in a paint store and I did, and I was mixing paints, selling wallpapers, selling carpeting and I had a boss who encouraged me to go back to school.

So as a midlife crisis, as I call it, I decided that I was going back to school and I did. I finished my degree in interior design and I kind of struggled with both lines. So I was fulltime, I was part-time, I was trying to integrate and successfully and while building my design practice, I was also doing the mental health piece. I really found that they integrated and thankfully we started on the wellness path before most people did and before it was a thing and learning about all the toxins at Rakers and all of the different building materials and how that really is a detriment to people’s health. We luckily got started in commercial spaces and found sort of a niche in working with mental health offices. So it’s been kind of nice to integrate both fields and both passions because I do love both.
[ALISON]
That is very cool. So tell me a little bit more about what you mentioned about kind of the wellness trend in spaces. How would you describe that for people who maybe aren’t familiar?
[LORI]
So I have a class for CEU credits for designers and architects, and it’s called Designing for Your Senses. So it really is the five or the four senses, not really taste, but it’s really the four senses of wellness. So you walk into a space and it’s cluttered and on the mental health end, clutter is a very big thing. Hoarding is a very big thing. So when you walk into a space like that, you feel scattered, you don’t feel integrated. You have a hard time kind of getting organized in your thoughts. You have a hard time putting things where they need to go or being productive in your day.

So that is sort of the site piece. Then there are design elements that we work with that create harmony and create balance. That’s sort of that integration of design versus mental health, because you want to walk into a space and you want to feel good. Then we also have mindfulness now. So that’s part of the mindfulness. You’re taking a minute, you’re taking a breath, you’re walking in, you’re going, oh my God, that looks good. Oh my God, that feels good. Oh, I love my kitchen. I love my home.

And now, of course, with everybody having been locked down for a year, we’re really taking notice of those things more so because we had stop, because we had to take a breath and we had to take a break. Then there’s the tactile, the touch. You’re sitting on a sofa and you want it to feel comfortable. You want it to feel soft or you have products that, or fabrics that need to be clean. You have pets and you have kids and you don’t want to feel like, I’m sorry for the expression, because I grew up with this too but the plastic slip covers on the sofas. Well you got up and your leg’s stuck.

So it’s very tactile. Or in the winter we say we want a warm cozy blanket or we want something cool to sleep on because we’re hot at night. So all of these pieces go into designing and you don’t normally stop to think about it. That’s what I’ve been able to do. Then we have healthcare issues where certain nylons or paints are giving off gases or odors or they’re in packing house. We had a building at Rikers that couldn’t, they had to shut it down because of methane gases.

We have clinics that don’t have ventilation and there’s carbon dioxide issues where people are falling asleep at their desk and nobody knows why. So all of these things are taken into account, products are taken into account on what we call sustainability organic foods. So there’s organic materials as well. We now know that kids who were eating lead paint back in the day, they have serious issues. So we no longer use lead paint. We no longer use oil based paints. Although some states still are we primarily try to avoid that and stay away from that if it’s not a loss. So these are things that are so huge and you don’t stop to think about it.
[ALISON]
That’s really interesting. Why do you think it’s important to have a really well designed office space?
[LORI]
So when you’re taking in clients and they’re walking in for the first time, you want them to open up. You want them to feel comfortable. You want them to not be distracted. You don’t want them to look around and be like, oh, you have a nice office. It’s distracting. They’re not there for your nice office. They’re there to talk to you and deal with their issues and if they’re distracted by a chair or if they’re hopping over things or if there’s a lot of photographs, so these are things that you want to take into account and you want them to be comfortable.

You don’t want them to be sitting on a sofa going, oh my God, I’m not comfortable moving around or that I’m just thinking into this and I’m falling asleep. So you want them to walk in, feel good and to be comfortable yes, but not falling asleep. You want them to be uncomfortable enough where they’re focused on themselves and can talk about the issues that are coming up for them.
[ALISON]
Nice. So I think one thing that I see practice owners who kind of just decorate the office themselves missing the mark is that they don’t often think about picking things that all work together and look cohesive. Like they just might have brought in some furniture from their house or they found at a thrift store or something like that and it just looks like a hodgepodge. So why is it important to have it look more cohesive?
[LORI]
Oh, oftentimes it’s like their home or a client’s home where things aren’t well put together. They’re not able to, they’re distracted. They’re not able to think through the issues and they’re looking and they’re sitting there and it’s that little background voice, like we see in cartoons and they’re like, oh yes, they’re talking to you. But then they’re like, that picture doesn’t match, that color doesn’t match. And even if they don’t notice that color match, it still feels scattered. It doesn’t feel like you’re in one place. So it’s important to have that cohesiveness just so they’re not having that little bubble over their head going okay, and different things.
[ALISON]
That’s such a good way of putting it. Yes, it definitely is a big distraction when it looks like a hodgepodge. Switching gears a little bit to talk about colors, I know often in healthcare they talk about using like blues and greens and things that are soothing. So what is your kind of perspective on that?
[LORI]
So people are definitely emotionally reactive to color. You can show someone blue, you can show someone green and they love it or they hate it. They’re like, no, I hate blue. No, I hate green. No, I hate reds. No, I hate orange. These are bright colors that create an emotion. It’s used in color of psychology and restaurants because they want you to either right, fast food, get up and eat quick, or they want you to have an ambiance and there’s low lighting. So these things are the same as within office. You want to appeal to everybody. So you want to stay as neutral as possible. It’s funny that the color that Benjamin Moore has, and I’m sure Williams girl, Benjamin Moore has some good colors and it’s called your beer Peter.

It borders on sort of the beige and it borders on the gray. So it’s appealing to everybody and not just a person who likes gray or a person who hates gray or a person who loves blue, hates blue. So painting in those neutral colors in sort of an off white or a white. I would say more of an off white because you want the room to be warm. You don’t want that really cool effect because you want someone to feel like they can engage with you. So if you’re sticking in those neutral colors, you are going to have a better rapport with your person and they’re not sitting there thinking, I hate this color. Why did they paint it bright? You don’t want an emotionally charged, you don’t want them to talk and be like, oh, lovely or I feel like I’m in a hockey stadium. So you really, you want something that nobody’s going to think about that’s going to just kind of blend into the background.
[BRIGHTER VISION]
We made it another year and now it’s time to jumpstart your practice, this and gear up for a successful 2022. What are the first steps to bringing in more of your ideal clients? Having a great website and marketing your private practice online? Whether you are a seasoned clinician with a website in need of a refresh or you’re fresh out of school needing your very first therapist website, Brighter Vision is the perfect solution. During the entire month of January, they’re running their biggest sale of the year.

For the entire month of January, they’re completely waving all set fees and only charging $39 a month for your entire first year of a new website. That’s a savings of $240 for your first year of website service with Brighter Vision. All you have to do is go to brightervision.com/joe to learn more and take advantage of this great deal. That’s brightervision.com/joe.
[ALISON]
So what do you think about using brighter colors like as accents, like pillows or maybe a small piece of furniture? Do you think you should in a therapy office, stay away from that and just really keep it very neutral or do you think there’s a place for some pops of color?
[LORI]
I definitely think there’s a place for some pops of color. Pillows are not offensive, ever. Regardless of what color they’re not offensive and if it’s in a neutral background, it just kind of gives it a little bit of a, well, we’re a happy place artwork. So, I mean, there are certain art pieces of artwork that you may want to avoid but you can use those colors in paintings and water colors, or if you found like a beautiful floral painting, it’s not offensive. So yes, I do think that there’s a place for it, but I wouldn’t paint the walls in teal blue.
[ALISON]
Right. So are there, I know you’ve designed a lot of therapy offices, are there, like your go-to kind of furniture pieces that you know will go in almost any therapy office that you recommend?
[LORI]
So yes, absolutely. Of course. Now these days it’s been a little bit harder because some of the products are a little bit harder to get, but there’s a company called Zuo Mod, Z-U-O M-O-D. They have furniture that’s specifically commercially graded. So what that means is it will hold up and it can take different body weights. It can take that traffic. Because when you’re in your home, you don’t need that. Commercially graded sofa. You don’t have 12, well, some 12 kids, but it’s not the norm to have 10, 12 people a day. Because sometimes we go from therapy from nine o’clock in the morning till nine o’clock at night with different people. We have families, we have men, we have women, we have kids.

So these products are commercially based so that they can withstand that traffic. And Zuo Mod has a great product, most home furnishings. They also are commercially graded. We’ll see a lot of their stuff in hotels in the lobbies and it’s because it looks home-like and soft and comfortable, but it can handle the traffic. If it’s a chair, maybe it doesn’t matter. If it’s a desk and you’re the only one using it, then it’s not going to matter so much. But when it is a sofa or when it is you have your office set up with four chairs or five chairs, usually we have a love seat. You do want that ability to withstand because you don’t want to keep throwing money away either. Even if it’s $400 and you see it in Home Goods, or TJ Mac or whatever story you have or Bob’s Discount, you don’t want to keep putting $400 every year if it’s going to add up. Duo Mod and Mo furnishings have great pieces that withstand that and are in a great price point.
[ALISON]
Okay, that’s great because I was going to ask you about kind of the difference between residential and commercial grade furniture and if you recommend that. Does everything have to be commercial grade? Can you get away with getting some things that are residential, like you said the desk, which might only be used by you maybe an hour a day or something?
[LORI]
Correct. Yes. I mean, there is a difference and you can bring your own stuff into it. The other piece of it is fabrics are fire retardant. So they’re also commercially graded. If you’re in a big building in a corporate space, because we have buildings that rent out suite at a suite at a suite of suite and they’re just mental health offices, you do want to make sure that they’re fire retardant because that could be an issue as well.
[ALISON]
Okay. That’s good to know. So is commercial great furniture just more durable overall? Is that kind of the difference?
[LORI]
That is the difference. The frames are a little bit sturdier. The fabrics are a little bit sturdier. They’re not, I was going to say it’s hard to clean, but they’re easier to clean and they don’t get dirty like that because they have the coatings over them. Then of course the fire rating.
[ALISON]
Okay, that’s good to know. So just circling back around to what furniture pieces do you recommend somebody has in their office? So it sounds like a love seat and a therapist chair and what else do you always try to include in an office?
[LORI]
So depending on the space, and most spaces are small we definitely do either a sofa or a love seat. We’ll do a chair because sometimes you have a husband and wife, if you’re doing couples, maybe they don’t want to sit next to each other for the first three sessions. Or you have a kid, an adolescent or a kid who doesn’t want to sit next to their parents or maybe you don’t know how many people are coming. So I always recommend a sofa and two chairs and one would be your chair or a sofa, two chairs. Then you have your desk chair that you can just roll right in.

So we definitely use those. We use the coffee table. That can, depending on if there’s room for side tables, because some offices just unfortunately aren’t big enough and you can’t do a side table, but you want your tissues. It’s always a good thing. Some therapists like the stress ball, so you can see a client like picking them up and doing squishy, squishy. Then you want to desk usually. I mean, nowadays everybody has a laptop or whatever, but you still, to have a desk is always a good thing. You may want a bookcase if you still have books.
[ALISON]
Nice. Do you —
[LORI]
Or stark, as you call it.
[ALISON]
Yes. Do you, whether there’s carpet in the office or not, do you recommend getting an area rug to kind of frame the seating area?
[LORI]
We usually do. On some occasions we’ve tried to put a rug down depending on if the carpet, so when you’re renting space or you’re leasing, you’re not, you don’t always have that choice of what carpet you can put down. Some carpets are what’s called plush and a rug will not adhere to it and becomes a flip factor and you don’t want someone to be falling in your office. So at that point we won’t use one, but usually we do try to use the rug as much as possible. It kind of ties into the space, keeps them grounded, gives that little pop of color that maybe you want, you don’t want to keep it all block.
[ALISON]
I’m a big fan of the area rug, even if there’s carpet.
[LORI]
Area rug, row pillows, desk accessories. You want a little pencil holder. You definitely want a clock.
[ALISON]
Right.
[LORI]
So that could be a wall clock. It’s perfect because that’s a great art piece of artwork or a little, whatever you pick to monitor your time.
[ALISON]
is there any rules around how to pick artwork? I know bigger artwork tends to be more expensive and so sometimes people want to skimp on that, but I think bigger piece of artwork is, and you tell me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s sort of like more like soothing and calming than having like a bunch of little pieces of artwork. Any thoughts about that?
[LORI]
So again, yes, I think depending on the space, but we usually stick to either spa-like photos where it’s the beach or rocks or anything sort of like that or we’ll stick with flowers, nature, landscapes beach. We try to stick to anything neutral. We don’t do really figures of people because you don’t know what that association, it’s like a Rosh shack test if anybody knows what that is, of people going, oh my God, that reminds me of my mother. Oh my God, that reminds … or activities. We try, I don’t know fishing maybe or pictures of something like that.
[ALISON]
Yes. I had a designer helping me with my office a few years ago and she picked out, it was an abstract painting, but the lines on it were very uneven and like spikey and the first week we had it hung up all the clients were like, the painting makes me anxious. So we had to take it down because like it was so kind of upsetting for people. Even though it was an abstract painting, it didn’t have any, there were no figures. It was just like splotches of paint, but it made everyone anxious so we had to take it down.
[LORI]
Well, exactly. It could be very jarring because if you’re in that space, you want everything exactly the same, symmetrical or everything’s all over the place so you’re kind of like feeling all over the place already. So now you look at a painting like that and you’re like, I can’t breathe. So that’s pretty big.
[ALISON]
Yes. It’s funny. What are some other, sorry, go ahead.
[LORI]
I was going to say, I took your test online on your website and it’s so true. It worked so well. It was great because I was like, oh, let me see how this plays out. This could be really fun. It was because I’m a total blend of transitional and that’s my personal taste and how I would do my office. Not of course how I would do someone else’s but yes, so if anybody wanted to see what their style is, I certainly recommend your website to do that. It was so cool.
[ALISON]
Oh thank you. I thought that I’d be like a fun element, especially for people who maybe have no clue what their style is. Nice. Well I’m glad it was correct for you.
[LORI]
Thank you.
[ALISON]
The one question I wanted to ask you are there just some like dos and don’ts that kind of come to mind off the top of your head, either like mistakes that you’ve seen other therapy practice owners make with like decorating their office, just like simple fixes they could make that would just make their office that much better?
[LORI]
Well, obviously the brightly colored paint on the walls. And like I said, the rug being a trip hazard because you want to make sure that the edges don’t curl. You want to make sure that it’s going to sit on top of whatever you’re putting it on. If you have to hire someone for a consultation or you have some great boards on your site and if you just want to get ideas. And then make sure that you’re doing a commercial grade sofa or pieces like that.
[ALISON]
What about lighting? I think that’s one thing we haven’t really talked about yet. Are there a certain number of lamps that you like to include in an office space or?
[LORI]
So depending on how much flexibility you have in your space, there’s usually task lighting, which is a lamp and then there’s general overhead lighting and then there’s decorative lighting. So you always want to have lights, if you can, or have them available. Some people have fluorescent lights and you don’t can’t really control that. But if you don’t, you have recess, you can have them on a dim mode because sometimes it gets too bright. Then at night you want that different lighting. If you can have a decorative fixture overhead, because that can create also a different light, if it’s too bright on the overhead, on the recess or if you have fluorescence, you don’t want to really use fluorescence that much because they can cause headaches and all sorts things. Then task lighting is always great if you have a couple lamps.
[ALISON]
Okay, great. I try like a floor lamp, a table lamp and like a task lamp at the desk area.
[LORI]
Great. They’re on the same page.
[ALISON]
Yes. So I think one of the challenging things for therapists when they’re looking at decorating their office is that there are so many different options with where you can buy things and it can be really overwhelming. You go on a website like wayfair.com and there’s literally like hundreds and thousands of options. So if somebody is trying to figure out where do I get these things, or how do I kind of narrow down the choices, what do you recommend? Do you recommend going on a site like Wayfair? Do you recommend just hiring a designer and letting them figure it out?
[LORI]
So I always recommend hiring a designer. I think it’s the safest and the easiest way to go. But Wayfair does have a commercial site. So if you say commercial furniture, it will pop up with those commercially rated pieces if you really want to do it yourself.
[ALISON]
I’ve seen the furniture tag that way and then you can also get a business account through them, which is nice.
[LORI]
Exactly.
[ALISON]
Are there any other, I know you mentioned a couple already, but are there any other sites that you think have good decor furniture for therapist offices?
[LORI]
So I know Zuo Mod is sold on several sites. I think they’re on Wether. I think they’re on Bed, Bath and Beyond on their website, not really in their stores. And I’m sure they’re sold, they may even be in Target. Then you can see a lot of the pieces are commercially rated. They give you a broad spectrum. And Mod’s home furniture, I also believe is sold in some of the retail sites. Then obviously your local furniture store would definitely be able to guide you. Even if they don’t show it and it’s residential, they do, a lot of the companies have commercial divisions. So has a commercial division, a little bit higher end, but if you go in your residential space, they can show you that company. So if you talk to your local sales person, they can guide you and be really helpful. And have a budget because if you’re new and starting out, it’s very different than growing and you have that funding available to you.
[ALISON]
That was something I was going to ask you. What do you think is like a realistic amount to furnish one office?
[LORI]
I would say to budget for like 5,000, at least. You can start off with a sofa, two chairs and a desk and then window treatments, just basic blinds, whether they’re forward. I wouldn’t use real wood, metal, there’s some funky metal ones. But I would not do fabric or cloth. They’re dust collectors. You don’t want to be cleaning your office every day.
[ALISON]
Okay. That’s good advice. Any other tips before we wrap up today?
[LORI]
I think we did pretty good. We covered a lot of ground.
[ALISON]
Yes, I think so too.
[LORI]
Yes, definitely a lot.
[ALISON]
If folks want to get a hold of you, what’s the best way for them to find you?
[LORI]
So it’s Long Island and then designer.com. So there’s two D’s, longislanddesigner.com or you can call me, (516) 317-9083. Alison will test. I always answer my phone regardless of what I’m in the middle of.
[ALISON]
Great.
[LORI]
It’s yes, Lori Miller. LGC Interior Design. We’re in Pinterest and Instagram. So now we can create a new site called interest. But Pinterest, Instagram, we’re all social media. We’re covered at LGC Interior.
[ALISON]
Okay, excellent. Well, it was great talking with you, Lori, and I really appreciate your time.
[LORI]
It was great talking to you too. Thank you so much and have a great day. Thanks Alison. Bye, bye.
[ALISON]
Thank you so much to Brighter Vision for being a sponsor of this podcast. We love your websites. I have a Brighter Vision website for my own practice. If you want to participate in the deal we were talking about at the beginning of the podcast, just hop on over to brightervision.com/joe.

Again, thank you so much for listening today. It’s been great to hear everybody’s feedback about the podcast as we are closing in on doing this for almost two years now. If you want to check out the Thera Suite website again, that address is www.thera-suite.com. I will talk to you all next time.

If you love this podcast, will you please rate and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast player?

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.